While wandering in the Judean desert (during work on the excavations at Tel Yaffir near Hebron in July 1989), [Glynnis approaches a pod-bearing tree thinking, "I'm hungry. What's that tree?"] I discovered [she reaches for a pod and puts it in her mouth] “Um? Yum! I’ll bet this is…”

carob.

Also called St. John’s bread because in the Bible, Matt 3:4, “John the Baptist was preaching in the wilderness of Judea … and his food was Locusts and wild honey.” The Greek word translated “locusts” is taken by some to mean “carobs” rather than grasshoppers.

[St. John, eating pods from a tree:] “That’s good, because I’d prefer to eat these big sweet chewy pods than grasshoppers any day. & they sure beat those veggie schnitzel back at the Kibbutz.”